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Fallout 4: New Vegas Gripes

Summary: Its more or less the same thing as Fallout 3, just different content.

I’m really in 2 minds about Fallout 4. On the one hand I’m happy to see a sequel to the much acclaimed Fallout series. I, like others have waited for what seems like an eternity for Fallout 4 to be released. Needless to say the expectations were high. But while playing the game, there are too few new game elements for it to really grab my attention for long periods of time.

Here are my top gripes with Fallout 4: New Vegas

Rather than being a new game it seems like nothing more than a Giant expansion pack for Fallout 3. The game mechanics are nearly identical. The HUD and inventory system, which was always clunky has not been improved. Most of the old bugs carry through to the new version. For all intensive purposes its the same game. This begs the question “Why the long wait for it?” Alright maybe I’m being a bit harsh here, but I really expected some original game content in the new release, sadly there is very little of this. A few new mob types exist, obviously the map is different. Besides this same shit, different day.

The run speed: Vanilla Fallout 4 has a really slow default run speed which really slows down the pace of the game. I guess this was done to provide a level of realism, but its not exactly a life sim. They might as well have given players a better run speed off the bat.

No vehicles? Every now and again you see motor bikes, for example in Goodspings, but these are just part of the scenery. Would have been nice if you could actually have repaired bikes, and used them. A dirt bike would have been an excellent addition to the game. I just can’t believe absolutely everyone in the wasteland get around either on live stock or walk. No one figured out how to jump start a bike?

Go to x, then go to z, then back to x quests. I understand the importance of these types of quests in any RPG. What I don’t like is that NV is full of them, and the game doesn’t even attempt to offer any new style of quest. I’m so used to this style of questing a lot of the time I just skip the dialog and follow the quest marker. Sometimes I stop and think, “What the hell am I doing?” I found the quests pretty confusing around “The Strip”.

Inventory management. The clunky interface isn’t great, but besides this it is incomplete. Notice when you transfer items to your companions you can’t see how much weight you’re using, neither them. Its still annoying having to flip through the pip boy, for some reason the mouse acceleration isn’t perfect on menus either.

Impassible areas. While the game is mostly sandbox, there are areas that are blatant arenas. Its not the worst thing about the game, but I find there are times you end up looking for that “one way in” to a certain area. mountain passes are used everywhere and a lot of the time you can’t pass over their peaks.

Not enough auto saves. I really hate travelling for an hour or so, killing off enough mobs to provide 1.5 levels experience, then dying. It gets annoying having to do all that content over. Saving frequently manually subtracts from the immersion.

Sex scene cut. There is one part in the game where you pay some hooker 300 caps for a “Good time”. Total waste of the 300 caps, all you get is a black fade out.

Same old static DX9 world. When Fallout 3 was released it was cutting edge. Problem is NV was released at the same time as DX11 dynamic game worlds are debuting. I know its supposed to be a waste land, but a slightly more dynamic environment could have been nice.

The radio stations suck. Fallout 3 had a couple of catchy tunes, which was one of the draw points of the game. I can’t think of 1 radio tune in NV that I really like. They should not have invested more energy in the sound track.

All the females strike the same pose when you talk to them. This is similar to Gothic 4. Not sure if this is a new lazy trend in game design, but its shoddy.

Crafting is not a big improvement from the last series. And like with my Fallout 3 review I found that you can get through the whole game more comfortably without crafting at all. Why bother having the content, if it doesn’t help that much.

Caravan the new card game, mmm very hard to learn. I still need to figure it out, but not sure if I will.

Image via Wikipedia

Ok now for the good things:

If you enjoyed Fallout 3, and want more of the exact same thing then NV is just for you.

Can keep you coming back, even if its slow, a bit dull, and can be boring to play. It still makes you want to come back and play it for some reason.

The game world is full of surprises and quests everywhere.

You can swim

Overall if the game had been marketed as a Fallout 3 expansion, I would have given it a 10/10. But as a new game it brings very little new to the table. So I would end this with a 7/10.